OREANDA-NEWS.  February 08, 2012. Cargo traffic at Odessa Commercial Sea Port (OCSP) in January 2012 increased by 29% year-on-year to 1,336,000 tons of dry bulk cargo, the company’s news release said.

According to Odessa port provisional data the monthly volume of metals and grain increased by147,000 tons and 333.9 tons, respectively. Handling of liquid bulk amounted to 651,300 tons.

"The decline in oil product volumes was caused by recent walkout of Kazakh oil industry workers. For three weeks, Odessa could not receive crude oil by railway from its strategic partner Tengizchevroil (TCO). Besides, there had been no crude oil deliveries from Azerbaijani and transits of Venezuelan oil to Belarus", the press release said.

Ukraine-based state-owned Odessa Commercial Sea Port is a largest port in the Black Sea-Azov basin. The port encompasses 14 ha, 9-km waterfront and 54 berths. The port’s passenger terminal can accommodate 300-m vessels. Port of Odessa is able to handle annually 14 million tons of dry bulk cargo and the same volume of oil products. In 2011, total cargo throughput at the port of Odessa rose 3.7% year-on-year, to 25 mln tons. Container traffic was up 29% to 453,700 TEUs.